US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on 14 July 2025. EPA/YURI GRIPAS / POOL

US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that Washington would supply Ukraine with “top-of-the-line” weapons to defend itself from Russian attacks and threatened to impose “very severe” tariffs on Moscow’s trading partners should Vladimir Putin not agree to a deal to end the war within 50 days.

During a press conference at the Oval Office with NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte, Trump said the US would send “billions of dollars' worth of military equipment” to NATO countries, who would pay for them before sending them on to Ukraine, where they would be “quickly distributed to the battlefield”.

This way, Trump said, Washington would provide a “full complement” of arms to Kyiv, including Patriot air defence systems requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the first missile shipments to arrive from European countries “within days” before being replenished by new US stocks.

He added that, alongside arming Ukraine, Washington would hit countries that trade with Russia — most likely the likes of India and China, who are major importers of Russian oil — with “about 100%” tariffs if Moscow continues to resist US calls for a ceasefire.

“We’re very, very unhappy with [Russia] and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs that are about 100%. You’d call them secondary tariffs”, Trump said, stressing that he was “disappointed” in Putin because he “thought we would have had a deal two months ago”.

The move marks a major shift in Trump’s policy on the war in Ukraine, with the US president growing increasingly frustrated with Putin for declaring Russia’s readiness for peace while continuing to launch missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities.

“I always hang up and say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call’, and then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city”, Trump said of his recent conversations with Putin. “And I say, ‘That’s strange’. And after that happens three or four times, you say, the talk doesn’t mean anything”.

Writing on X following the announcement, Zelensky said he had spoken with Trump by phone to discuss the plan and hailed the US president’s “willingness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace”.

“We agreed to catch up more often by phone and coordinate our steps in the future as well. Thank you, Mr. President! Thank you, America!”, Zelensky said.